August 11th. Dublin

We left at 6am to drive up to Holyhead and then take Swift ferry to Dublin. It is about 4:45 hour ride covering 300 miles. Kids were very good. They kept busy consuming all the perishables we packed and looking at a could of new things on iPad. The road kept pretty monotonous for a while until we passed Warwick castle.

After that it got very pretty. North Wales has plenty of scenic hills with yellow or bright green grass, featuring grazing black and white cows or sheep or both. Every now and then we saw a castle on those hills. A few are Unesco sites. We may have to come back here as well :)

Approach to ferry was very organized. Similar to Eurotunnel we got routed to our lanes to wait for our ship. About 150-170 cars seem to fit on the ship. After we parked, we went to the waiting deck on the fourth floor where lots of diversions, in addition to the view kept us busy for the next two hours.

The approach to the hotel from ferry was somewhat rundown. There were huge crowds of soccer fans predominantly dressed in red and white coming from the city center that horrified us with the thought of how we will look for parking and seemed to have explained by hotel availability was so scarce.  But surprisingly we were able to park right in front of our Beldevere hotel. They gave us quintuple room.

Hotel is located possibly 15 minutes from the center. As we walked passing even more more fans going in the opposite direction the area seemed to have improved only marginally. We also passed a guy who was playing "Million Red Roses" the old Russian song from the eighties. Kids excited to be able to finally stretch their feet were running in all directions.

After we crossed the river, the city got much nicer. It did not have the manicured scrubbed look of some of the other Western European cities. But it had some interesting and distinctive character that is hard to explain.

We headed straight for the library and see the book of Kells. They do a good warm up where in the series of rooms they show enlarged reproductions of various sections of it with explanations. And, finally, showing the books under the glass somewhat is not as impressive because you obviously cannot see all those interesting other pages. And the crowd seemed to permanently glued to it. It is amazing that the book is a thousand years old and the colors are as vibrant. Quoting the Greek tour guide last year "ancient people were not stupid."

The enormous library impressed me more than the one in Coimbra. It is not as lavishly decorated, and it does not look like they would be able to save all 200k volumes stored there but the sheer size of it, and very well presented exhibits of organic and mineral coloring materials used in decorating the Book of Kells, and also the oldest harp in Ireland (that will turn 1000 years old next year) were really memorable. The university buildings, a combination of classical and cement seventies styles, had faded to a point of stained gray and have pleasant comfortable look.

Next we walked over to Temple bar area. Originally there was William Temple Barr who was associated with St Patrick's cathedral who got this land. Over the years the land had expanded and one of the r-s was lost. So now it is a beautiful area filled with atmospheric Irish Bars. There was music coming from bars son either side of the road. We hopped in and watched live performers and cheering crowds. We eventually came down to Fitzsimmons and sat down. Isabella went dancing. Dan and I had some beers and snacks.

Musicians stopped playing and came down to say thank you to Isabella :).

We relaxed and continued our walk stopping by the castle to see the incredible sand structures, Cathedral to feed doves, and the Queen of Tarts to replenish our carb levels. There was a billboard at one of the area theaters, Olympia, stating that Regina Spector was performing on the 19th of August. Not only are we in a very nice place, it is very happening too :) At the theater there was a crowd of college students dressed predominantly in black waiting for the theater doors to open to see the Lambs of God. There were some kneelings when the doors opened.

As we got to Stephen's Green past the lovely shopping street that resembled the one in Seville, we saw a group of musicians with some serious equipment and a puppet theater finish setting up. The area, for Sunday night, was already somewhat deserted so we stayed to see what will happen. First there was a fun puppet number and a small crowd had built up. And then one of the musicians made a little speech saying the CDs that are given out are free, and she is not religious, but she will now sing a few songs for our lord Jesus Christ. The last two statements did not jive together so we got on our way disappointing Georgia who was ready for a good show.

By then the kids were tired so we headed back. Parking was expiring early tomorrow morning so we drove around looking for a place to park. There were plenty of parking spots around but all had the same issue. We tried nearby Qpark but it was 25 euro per 24 hours. So we just left it downstairs and went to our hotel. Dan found out that if you reserve spot online on Qpark website it is 12 euro. So we made a reservation for tomorrow.